A forum where students of fire and leadership come together to discuss, debate and exchange leadership development concepts, experience, and thoughts with an intent to promote cultural change in the workforce and strengthen the wildland fire service and the communities they serve.

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Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Friend or Foe?

Some of you may recall a game show called "Friend or Foe."
Contestants partnered up to amass a "trust fund" and either split the
fund or take all the money for themselves.

Much like the game show, we bring together individuals from all walks of life and form wildland firefighting teams. We share knowledge, we build coalitions, and we experience moments of betrayal within our teams. Are your teammates friends or foes?

Leaders start by building a foundation of trust in teams.
Trust is the underpinning of all cohesive teams; without
it, teams are merely collections of individuals that can
never hope to achieve synergy.Recognizing that communication is the key to building
trust, we communicate openly with teams and make
sure we convey the essence of our values, mission, and
vision. In doing so, we also communicate information
about ourselves because our teams must, first and
foremost, trust us. (p. 53)

With lives on the line, building high-trust teams is critical. Knowing that you have people looking out for you and caring for your well-being is vital to effective teams and leadership success. We believe:

When the mission takes our people into harm’s way,
fire leaders redeem their people’s trust by looking out
for their well being: doing our best to make decisions
that appropriately balance risk and potential gain, being
watchful for unfolding conditions that may jeopardize
their safety, and being present to share the risks and
hardships. The leader being first in and the last out is a
classic way of demonstrating the ideal of taking care of
our people. (p. 46)

Unfortunately, egos and self-centered motivations are a human flaw and can destroy the very teams we have built. Regardless if you are a leader or a follower, lapses of authenticity and breaks in trust are generally easily identified and can have devastating effects. We believe:

Fire leaders strive to create command climates based on
trust in which people feel comfortable raising issues
that may be problems and engaging in healthy debate
over potential courses of action. (p. 19)

We believe:

A unified leadership team sends a powerful message:
when all leaders follow the same priorities and
reinforce leader’s intent through consistent actions and
words, our people develop a strong sense of trust for
their leaders. It dispels the propensity to second-guess
command decisions as subordinates recognize that the
leadership team moves as one and is solidly in charge. (p. 16)

We believe:

Good command climate is characterized by open
communication, mutual trust and respect, freedom to
raise issues and engage in debate, clear and attainable
goals, and teamwork. (p. 19)

Wildland Fire Leadership Challenge - Digging a Little Deeper

Read Richard Fagerlin's book Trust•ol•ogy: The Art and Science of Leading High-Trust Teams.